Monday, October 31, 2011

I am amazed at how our traditions of Halloween have morphed from being 'spooky' to being an extravaganza of 'blood and gore'. We've gone from the haunted to the horrible.

At a time when we are assailed by terrorism, unrestrained violence and sudden horrible deaths, I am buffaloed by displays of bloody skulls, dismemberment, and rotting bodies—and that's just in the aisles of Walgreen's . With innumerable Halloween stores catering to the bloody extremes of the trend, I prefer the supernatural thrill of moonlit cemeteries and icy fingers on the back of my neck, rather than celebrating horrible people doing horrible things.

Below, in the midst of World War II, when the outcome of the war was in question and even when most people knew nothing of the holocaust—people didn't need to make up scary stories, they read them in the daily paper. Different faces and crimes, it's really no different now.

Sunday, October 30, 2011

Of course you know how to tell this old standby to kids who are in the right spooky mood gathered round you in the darkness with a flashlight under your chin—slowly and ominously until you suddenly shriek out the last two words . . .

The grand tradition of Trick-or-Treating is given a grand treatment here in a set of promotional graphics for Cricket Magazine, way back in the '80s. Fritz Wenner, working in a style that is reminiscent of Ronald Searle and/or Sergio Aragonés, brings superb detail to his art.

Thursday, October 27, 2011

In the last post, Larry made a comment that is pertinent to the degree of enjoyment one can have from excellent images: the triggering of the mind's eye in wanting to explore beyond the two dimensional surface of a picture — to awaken curiosity so as to imagine what the environment is like beyond the walls, through the gates and doors and windows of a magnificent structure — to imagine who might live here and what their lives might be like.

To imagine the unfolding of human drama to explain how and why a person hangs from a gibbet, the rotting corpse attracting carrion, punishing beyond death an enemy of the people.

Magicians were huge in the 1930s and 40s, with cult followings (usually other magicians), and are regarded even now as legendary showmen, having cultivated an aura of ancient dark wisdom.

As we are reminded in the last post's comments by Britt Reid (I was getting to it, Britt ; ) ) , Dr. Neff was a real-life magician with a real-life magical mystery tour. Bill Neff (1905-1967) was famous for his Madhouse of Mystery show—a 2 ton stage extravaganza, requiring 13 assistants!

Besides his comic book adventures (in his own title and also featured in the 1940s Red Dragon series) there is an interesting book about him, as Mr. Reid points out, called Pleasant Nightmares—Dr. Neff and His Madhouse of Mystery by William Rauscher.

You can see that Dr. Neff had legendary help in his stage shows.

Bela Lugosi with Bill Neff, 1947

Interested in pop culture? While you're online, check out some of Mr. Reid's blogs here, here and here.

Sunday, October 23, 2011

Before there were Ghost Busters, there were the 1948 Ghost Breakers, featuring Dr. Neff. This is a sliced off cover that's been rattling around in my morgue, and every time I see it, I think of the actor John Noble, who portrays our beloved Walter on Fringe.

Bob Powell — Ghost Breakers #1 — 1948

Personally I think the resemblance is spooky. What's even spookier: John Noble was BORN in 1948! Coincidence? You decide . . .

"There are three methods of taking care of trick-or-treat pranksters on Halloween. The first method is to give them what they want, which is cowardly. The second method is to go to a movie and leave the house dark, which is even more cowardly. The third method is to refuse to answer the doorbell, which is downright stupid because they'll wreck the place.

Here, MAD proposes a fourth method, a new way of dealing with Halloween pranksters. Instead of falling for the old trick-or-treat bit, you surprise them with . . ."

This is a slightly disturbing image from Weird Tales by Virgil Finlay in an early phase of his style, a loose page in my image morgue.

The prose is interesting to glance at, what with words like 'stertorously' and 'horripilation'. I bet the rest of the story is filled with sesquipedalianism as well, not to mention phrases like, "stripping off her flaring-skirted frock of white organza and the clinging slip of primavera printed satin as one might turn a glove."

Friday, October 21, 2011

In 1970 I was ready to give up on comics, and I might have but for the comic book stylings of Neal Adams. I always bought multiples of Neal Adams covers and stories—not for speculation— but because, well, because, well I dunno, just because. Neal Adams revitalized the Batman character, and in my mind his version remains the best.

The Halloweenish cover below is so iconic, and was a tribute to the iconic Bob Kane cover from Batman's first year. Both are my favorite Batman covers, and might be some of yours as well.

Thursday, October 20, 2011

This painting displayed pretty amazing sensuality for the transition of the Victorian era to the Edwardian period. Quite ignoring Art Nouveau, this is the romantic aesthetic that still saturated the times.

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

I hate to mar the pictorial nature of this blog to post this, but I'm making a plea to all of you blogspot bloggers to turn off your lightbox feature. It's a pain in the @$$ and prevents all of us from totally enjoying your hard work and cool blogs. It's especially painful for Macs.

Go to 'settings' and then 'formatting', and half way down, just say "NO".

Thank you, and I'll look forward to seeing your blogs soon. This message will self-destruct after a while, cuz it just ain't pretty.

This engraving by Prud'hon was to illustrate the narrative poem Phrosine et Mélidore, by Gentil-Bernard, later adapted into an opera. Without going into the rest of it, this scene is where the lovers are united after she nearly drowned at sea trying to swim to his rendezvous beacon. Yada yada.

Looks a lot like a vampire, no? Yes? My lowbrow attempt at another seasonal graphic. And oh, my adoration of Prud'hon's talent.

The figure studies of Pierre-Paul Prud'hon are amazingly controlled and precise and yet, to my aesthetic, don't seem fussy. Prud'hon's studies are as rich as other's full-blown paintings. Leonardo himself would be envious.

Below, in detail, you can see the model's hair in lovely disarray, each stroke of chalk on the body lovingly and authoritatively placed, each eyelash delicately delineated.

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

This picture has been hanging around in my reference morgue for the longest time, under 'B' for, uh, bondage. But I wonder why I kept it. I don't see that I'll ever need to draw anything evenly remotely like this. Still . . . I guess ya just never know.

Monday, October 10, 2011

If you're a fan of comic art, kindly step over to Whirled of Kelly and check out another beautiful Adventures of Peter Wheat story by the one and only Walt Kelly. Rare and rarified, it's worth your time.

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About Me

My name is Thom Buchanan.
I'm an artist and photographer.
People are my favorite subjects to portray in art and photos. My wife (and studio partner) has called that my 'people skills', as I've been passionately creating portrait studies for many years.
I refer to myself as a pictorialist, a combination of image-making and journalist. Images are my life.